172536_CPCA_2020_Spring Magazine - Final | Page 38

Synergizing Pre-Pandemic
Community Partnerships
By: Max Bosel
Chief of Police – Mountain View Police Department
Those affected by poverty have been disproportionately impacted by the measures put into place to combat
the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Many held low paying jobs that were abruptly lost, and the ability to
acquire food and essentials for basic needs have been significantly hampered.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” a single parent living in an RV recently expressed in desperation.
Amid the soaring housing prices, many communities in the
San Francisco Bay Area have seen increasing growth in the
number of people who are homeless and unstably housed in
cars and Recreational Vehicles (RVs) parked in residential and commercial
neighborhoods. Several years ago, the Mountain View Police
Department began addressing the impacts of hundreds of vehicles
across the city with people living on the streets in encampments,
cars and RVs. Not surprisingly, the department took a proactive,
problem-solving approach similar to the community policing strategies
embraced by many police agencies. With seed money from the
last year of the state’s AB109 funding, the City Council created a
new Police Officer position with the primary mission of providing
public safety and community caretaking services focused on the city’s
growing numbers of homeless and unstably housed people. The
position was added to the department’s specialized unit that focuses
on neighborhood services and community engagement, and which
is comprised of a team that is adept at collaborating with other city
departments and community-based organizations to proactively
address issues with crime, blight, and referring those in need to social
and supportive services.
One key relationship that was forged through this newly created
position was with the Community Services Agency (CSA), a local
non-profit that has provided vital social services to the Mountain
View community since 1957. Following the police department’s
newly focused approach, the agency has been more closely connected
in collaborating outreach efforts for services with the police department
than ever before. As a social services organization, there is a
fine line of maintaining credibility with clients they serve who may
also be on the receiving end of law enforcement’s response for minor
criminal offenses, such as public intoxication. Despite this challenge,
an appropriate balance has worked, and the collaborative successes
have been highlighted in local media stories on the homeless narrative.
Blending the police department’s enforcement and community caretaking
responsibilities with a collaborative relationship with CSA will
prove to be vital with the impending COVID-19 impacts.
The police department’s approach to homeless services also involves
working closely with the City Manager’s Office, other non-profits and
faith-based organizations that have been instrumental in establishing
safe parking lot programs and providing homeless services. Another
key relationship has been with the Mountain View Public Safety
Foundation, a non-profit formed in the last six years that supports
local public safety with training and equipment needs. This newer
addition to our community has nevertheless also been instrumental
as a fiduciary agent for some of the police department’s donation
programs that provide disadvantaged families food and gifts during
the holidays. These pre-existing relationships were crucial to the
seamless launching point for the City’s response as the COVID-19
pandemic unfolded.
Mountain View had Santa Clara County’s second reported death
at the outset of the disease being discovered in California, which
put the city at the epicenter of this pandemic. As the City’s local
state-of-emergency was declared on March 12th, and the drastic and
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